Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a full-service firm that offers a broad base of practice area specialisms, including an employment and labor group focused on the issues employers and management face. The firm offers assistance and representation against the day-to-day challenges in addition to complex litigation. In Texas, the firm’s labor and employment group is located in the key market hubs: Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin.

The Houston office offers the largest concentration of labor-dedicated attorneys and the team recently handled a transgender discrimination case brought under Title VII. The plaintiff claimed that after being offered a position with the firm’s client, it was rescinded once the client discovered she is a transgender woman. The case addressed two issues, including whether Title VII sex-based discrimination covered transgender employees and whether the client’s basis for not hiring the woman was because she is transgender. Courts throughout the country are grappling with this issue. In this particular case, the team prevailed; the court ruled that the client did not discriminate against the plaintiff based on her transgender status and granted the team summary judgment. The Houston team is comprised of many talented lawyers including Carter Crow and Shauna Johnson Clark. Other lawyers in Texas include San Antonio’s Mario Barrera.

The Texas-based teams have handled matters in California, Nevada, and New York; the firm also offers offices in Los Angeles and New York as well. The team is defending several disputes in California, including a wage and hour class action in California Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles and a single-plaintiff case alleging age and nation of origin discrimination claims in CA Superior court for the County of Orange. The team has recently defeated an ADEA class action lawsuit brought by the EEOC in district court in Nevada. The employment and labor team successfully defended Mattress Firm in the case, winning its motion for summary judgment to dismiss the case on all grounds based on insufficient evidence.